Cohesive Teams Understand Accountability

Now that we understand commitment, that brings us to the next behaviors of cohesive teams, accountability.  How do you help teams to become more accountable?

First, we want to define accountability as peer-to-peer accountability. We are not talking about personal accountability—I do what I say I’m going to do. That is taking personal responsibility for doing your job.  We are talking about holding one another accountable, and that can be difficult! It can be hard to tell a team member that you think they are not pulling their weight on a project or to question their approach/process for doing a task.   It is just easier to complain to co-workers or the team leader than to follow-up with other team member with team accountability as the goal.

Plus we realize most people do not like to give or get criticism!  Even criticism that is “positive” or made into a feedback sandwich can be hard to say or to hear.  So we suggest they offer constructive feedback (how and why for improvement) instead.  Feedback is a gift to help others grow and so is accountability.   If the team’s relationships are strong and team members are vulnerable then they feel able to provide open and honest feedback to each other and are able to hold each other accountable.

Part of the key to feedback is to understand where the other person is coming from, i.e. their personality of behavioral style.  This is part of the team’s communication that is built through assessments in The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team program.  An  interesting thing about providing feedback towards accountability is the more the team members demonstrates this action, the less likely they become in needing to do it as often.  With feedback, team members will develop a habit and a mindset towards being accountable.  This builds accountability for the team as a whole as well.

Next, we will look at why results are the final layer in The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team model.